Values & Community

While overweight women suffer a nosedive in self-esteem when they view photos of models of any size, underweight women enjoy a boost in self-esteem when they do the same, says a study examining the effects of media images on women.

Positive stereotypes may have the power to override the impact of negative stereotypes, says a new study out of Indiana University. While this and previous studies have shown that women perform worse on math tests if made aware of the notion that females are inferior at math, the study is the first to examine the effects of positive and negative stereotypes simultaneously.